In an essay on emotional care, author and philosopher Alain de Botton suggested, “A good internal voice is rather like (and just as important as) a genuinely decent judge: someone who can separate good from bad but who will always be merciful, fair, accurate in understanding what’s going on, and interested in helping us deal with our problems.” It’s not whether our inner voice is an optimist or a pessimist. It’s whether it’s fair. If we find our internal negativity holding us back, or our eternally optimistic “You can do it!” voice getting in the way of our seeing reality, we need to broaden
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